


More than the stars in the sky

by Elesianne



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Introspection, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Years of the Trees, Young Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-21 10:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20691698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elesianne/pseuds/Elesianne
Summary: Stars, Fëanáro calls her freckles.'They are the wrong colour,' she protests.'I know that you have more imagination than to see only one colour in the stars,' he admonishes her gently.Nerdanel and Fëanor's young love, told in small pieces from Nerdanel's point of view.





	More than the stars in the sky

**Author's Note:**

> If you like, you can read [my older fic Once upon a journey](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10231361) about Nerdanel and Fëanáro's first meeting first, though it's not at all necessary to understand this fic.
> 
> Tolkien wrote about Nerdanel: _[---] she was not among the fairest of her people. But she was strong, and free of mind, and filled with the desire of knowledge. In her youth she loved to wander far from the dwellings of the Noldor [---] and thus she and Fëanor had met and were companions in many journeys._

From a young age, Nerdanel makes sure to know herself.

She knows that she is broad-shouldered, strong and capable, and nimble-fingered too.

She is not beautiful in that willow-slender, pale and exquisitely symmetrical way that seems to be most admired, the beauty that most songs are written about. Her beauty is in her strength and, perhaps, in her thick and glossy reddish-brown hair.

She is not very eloquent, not twinkle-eyed, not solemn either.

She is firm-willed and patient and a good listener and more than good at sorting through what she learns, making most of it, and applying what she has learned in ways that are all her own.

*

One day, on her longest journey alone so far, she meets a pretty, young prince. He is sharp-tongued and sharp-witted, but shy and uncertain at the same time beneath his proud surface.

Nerdanel can tell that this chance meeting will have a profound impact on her life.

She doesn't like to make quick judgements, and thinks them unwise, but there is some part of her that she has little control over that makes her agree to travel with him and stay close to him and gravitate towards him ever after that, even when they return from uninhabited lands.

She half-expects him to seem different in the presence of other people, and to act different toward her, but he doesn't. He is as brilliant and brittle and interested in her opinions and her work as he was before.

*

Nerdanel's mother works clay and her father stone and metal, and she learns both their crafts and uses them to make something that no one in her family ever has.

She creates sculptures that look exactly, precisely, like the things they represent, and she creates sculptures that look like nothing but her imagination.

When Fëanáro sees her work for the first time, he is one of the few more impressed by the latter.

He has a quicksilver mind that she enjoys chasing after, not that she is often far behind. They have debates that are often long but rarely devolve into actual arguments, because they both enjoy debating in good spirits so much.

They love to find out new things together, too.

Fëanáro loves her sense of humour, he tells her. He has a quick wit, she could tell as soon as she met him, but she is better at seeing the humorous side in everyday situations and in things that go differently than planned.

*

He comes to her home to be an apprentice of her father's and, with a confidence that few others would have in his situation, to pursue a friendship and a courtship with her too.

'I don't want to spend time with you in secret, because there is nothing to be ashamed about it', he tells her. 'But I don't care to make a spectacle of it either.'

She understands that for all his life he has been under scrutiny from everyone around him, whether out of care or concern or simply curiousness about the king's motherless child. It is no wonder he doesn't want the folk of the house of Mahtan staring at them as they get to know each other better.

Fortunately Nerdanel doesn't mind seeking private places to meet and keeping him all to herself in the moments they spend together.

*

Stars, Fëanáro calls her freckles.

'They are the wrong colour', she protests.

'I know that you have more imagination than to see only one colour in the stars', he admonishes her gently.

*

Nerdanel has never danced on light feet like fawns on the fields of Nessa, like most of her peers. She has always been sure-footed, though, finding her way swiftly through difficult terrain without stumbling, and when she is moulding something with her hands or her tools, she is graceful and precise.

Fëanáro is a good dancer, elegant and light-footed, though particular about his dance partners.

He persuades her to dance with him during one of their private meetings. They are in a little forest clearing, still wearing work clothes, at midday. It should feel ridiculous.

It feels romantic. He lets her lead half of the time, and his body close to hers is a great pleasure to her, warm and strong.

*

Their courtship is short.

'I love you more than the stars in the sky', Fëanáro tells her one night when they sit in the grass in the horse pasture behind her parents' house. They'd snuck out after the house quieted for the night.

The grass around them is tall and the night is warm and quiet, the sound of crickets filling the air around them.

Nerdanel kisses him and whispers in his ear her own love.

He holds her hand tight and tells her, 'I want to be alone together with you as often as we want, in a place that is our own.' His eyes are fierce and focused. 'I haven't had a home since my father brought that Vanya to our house. I want to make a new one with you. I know it will be a happy home.'

'We are very young, and have not known each other long.' Nerdanel feels necessary to say this in spite of her heart soaring at his words. 'And we should not marry only because you do not want to share a home with your stepmother.'

Fëanáro squeezes her hand, hard, and kisses her equally hard. 'I told you, Nerdanel, I love you and I want to share my life with you. Knowing that I don't have to go back to my father's house when my apprenticeship ends is a relief but I don't need to marry to avoid that. I need to marry you because I love you.'

He takes her in his arms and sinks his hands in her hair, and Nerdanel cannot help but smile at him. He makes her feel fierce and tender at once.

'Then I pledge myself to you, to marry you', she tells him.

'And I promise myself to you and to marry you one year from now.' Fëanáro kisses her, and Nerdanel kisses him back with all that she is.

It is not like her to make promises without thinking them through thoroughly. Though this decision seems to others a rash one, it is not. Nerdanel has been weighing it in her mind since the day she met Fëanáro.

*

The first time they go to Tirion together, they travel as a betrothed couple.

'Shouldn't you talk to your father first, before we tell anyone of our decision?' she asks before their departure.

'I do not need his advice for this', Fëanáro replies. 'And he didn't ask for my acceptance before bringing home that woman as his bride.'

What else is there for Nerdanel to do but sigh at that, and hope that his resentment of his father's wife will fade with the passing of years and his own happy union.

*

Fëanáro never writes any songs or poems about her, but then neither does she about him. They are not that kind of people. They make each other courting gifts, though, beautiful objects infused with all their skill and their love, and they continue to give smaller and larger gifts of their own making once they are married.

Some projects it is a pleasure to talk about with Fëanáro, whether his or hers, but keeping others as a surprise is even more delightful.

Fëanáro works long and hard in secret to make a new metal that he declares is a better fit and more complimentary of Nerdanel's skin and hair than any other, and makes many sets of jewellery of it for her.

She appreciates the jewellery though she isn't as certain as he is that it enhances her looks. But that doesn't matter, for she has never felt as lovely as when he is looking at her with all the intense attention that he dedicates to things that he is passionate about.

Neither has she has ever appreciated the power in her body as much as when they are twined tightly together, kissing and touching and doing all those things which make the physical union of love so enjoyable.

*

She likes him best in the pale white light of the stars, or in Telperion's silver light, and out of his clothes: the contrasts between his pale skin and black hair and bright eyes are best enjoyed that way. He is a delight to all her senses.

He likes her in firelight. 'You are wonderfully warm, my love', he tells her once, running his hands down the sides of her face, her neck, her clavicles, and below. 'Always warm and sweet.' He kisses her. 'But warmest like this, with the fire making red gold out of your hair.'

*

After they are married they make their first home in a little cottage not far from her parent's house, for Fëanáro is still Mahtan's apprentice. They spend a few blissful years together there, making a happy home like he promised her. They continue to make their long journeys too, constant companions now.

Discovering new places together is wonderful, but so is coming home.

Their second home Fëanáro designs and builds in Tirion, and they fill it with beautiful things that are just to their taste, and with spirited discussions and debates.

Nerdanel has a large, light-filled studio there, and Fëanáro a workshop and forge in a building beside the main house.

It is all just as they like, adding to their happiness, and so does the child Nerdanel discovers herself carrying soon after they move in. Already from the small flicker of life inside her she can tell that the child is the fairest thing she and Fëanáro have ever made, and the most loved.

*

A friend of hers tells her, whispering it as if a delicious secret, that some in the king's court are saying that she has tamed the wild-spirited prince.

'As if anyone ever could', Nerdanel tells her friend.

But she feels warm at knowing that though she could never tame Fëanáro (and why would she want to? She loves his fierce self), the something special that is between them makes it possible for him to find restfulness when he is with her.

Working or debating things with Fëanáro is stimulating and exciting, but sharing quiet moments with him is exquisite.

Sometimes they talk more animatedly, sometimes more quietly. Sometimes only she talks and he listens. He listens best in these private, quiet moments; he even listens to her advice, which she didn't really expect him to do, in the beginning.

He likes to lie with his head on her chest or her shoulder, or her stomach once they know of the new life growing there. She likes that she is strong enough to hold him, and that he trusts her strength.

She loves to run her hands through his hair, ink-black and softer than it looks. It flows like singing water through her fingers.

His eyes are blue and grey and always burn bright, and more than anything they remind her of the innumerable stars in the sky, beloved above all else.

**Author's Note:**

> Some Nerdanel artworks that have inspired me: by [Gurthang](https://gurthang.tumblr.com/post/162524663617/i-was-rooting-around-in-my-work-files-folder-and), by [ACommonAnomaly](https://acommonanomaly.tumblr.com/post/156595779803/nerdanel-maedhros-and-maglor-3), by [Filat](https://www.deviantart.com/filat/art/Nerdanel-Mahtan-s-daughter-600742182).
> 
> I'm also on [Tumblr](https://elesianne.tumblr.com/).


End file.
